According to the 2021 State Aid Scoreboard relating to State aid spending in 2020, published on Thursday 8 September, Member States granted €384.33 billion under State aid measures for all objectives, of which €227.97 billion has helped businesses seriously affected by the Covid-19 pandemic to remain viable.
The annual State Aid Scoreboard provides a comprehensive overview of EU State aid expenditure based on reports provided by Member States.
In 2020, Member States and the United Kingdom spent around 2.43% of their total 2020 GDP on State aid serving all objectives excluding aid to railways and Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI).
Poland and Greece are the Member States with the highest share of Covid-19-related State aid expenditure relative to 2020 national GDP (3.8% and 3.6% respectively), followed by Malta (3%), Slovenia (2.5%), Hungary (2.1%) and Germany (1.9%). Ireland (0.2%) and Sweden (0.2%) were the Member States that spent the least in relative terms, followed by Finland (0.3%), Belgium (0.4%) and the Netherlands (0.58%).
Member States are increasingly making use of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), which provides for the possibility of implementing certain measures with a limited impact on the internal market without the prior authorisation of the Commission, as well as other sectoral block exemptions (i.e. the Agricultural Block Exemption Regulation and the Fishery Block Exemption Regulation). In 2020, 79% of new State aid measures were implemented under the Block Exemption Regulations.
Link to the Scoreboard: https://aeur.eu/f/2zy (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)